Hallucinations
by LindseyBee
Summary: "How many ways do I watch Prim die? Relive my father's last moments? Feel my own body ripped apart?" ;; Hunger Games, pg. 195. What would it be like to experience Katniss's hallucinations?


Summary:_ How many ways do I watch Prim die? Relive my father's last moments? Feel my own body ripped apart?_ ;; Hunger Games, pg. 195. What would it be like to experience Katniss's hallucinations?

Basically, I was re-reading _The Hunger Games _and I came across the line about Katniss's hallucinations after her tracker jacker stings. And I wondered about her hallucinations, and what _exactly _she was seeing. So, I decided to write a fanfiction about it. Enjoy and critique. This will not only cover the hallucinations she mentioned, but also ones I myself invented. Every chapter will be a different hallucination. Due to the base of this fanfiction, it may be graphic, gruesome, depressing, angst-filled, etc. This story will end when I feel it needs to. Also, I will update as frequently as I can, which may or may not be often.

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games._

;;;

_The world begins to bend in alarming ways. A butterfly balloons to the size of a house and then shatters into a million stars. Trees transform to blood and splash down over my boots. Ants begin to crawl out of the blisters on my hands and I can't shake them free. They're climbing up my arms, my neck. Someone's screaming, a long high pitched scream that never breaks for breath. I have a vague idea it might be me. I trip and fall into a small pit lined with tiny orange bubbles that hum like the tracker jacker nest. Tucking my knees up to my chin, I wait for death. _

_Sick and disoriented, I'm able to form only one thought: _Peeta Mellark just saved my life.

_Then the ants bore into my eyes and I black out._

I wake to the familiar scent of charcoal and burning coal, and I realize vaguely that I am still hallucinating. My surroundings are dark aside from the dim lighting of portable lamps, like the ones they use in the coal mines. No, they _are _the ones they use in the coal mines. Men surround me, though I'm not actually _there_, but somehow I also am. The experience is confusing.

My father is several feet from my invisible position. He is smiling, chuckling, and chattering amongst friends as he mines. His body is coated in the ashes of charcoal. My face breaks into a grin. I long to hug him, to embrace him, yet I can't. I cannot move. What _am_ I, exactly?

A friend of my father's whom I hazily recognize, Danlar Ambel, chuckles along with him. My father is so handsome. His skin is olive, equally to mine, just as I remember. I nearly cry.

All is well at the current moment. Danlar and my father talk casually.

"My little girl's birthday is tonight," says my father. He's talking about me. Or maybe Prim?

"The littlest one?" asks Danlar.

"Nah. My _older _little girl." My father laughs, his voice echoing amid the mines. Several other works sneer nastily in his direction in response to the disruption.

"Katniss? She's beautiful. How old is she now?" says Danlar interestedly.

"Old enough. Growin' up too fast. Just last week—" My father attempts to begin a story involving my latest escapade, though he is interrupted and his face suddenly becomes ashen. "The bird," he croaks. "It's—it's stopped singing." He is referring to the mining bird. The one that senses toxic or dangerous gases.

He has only a moment to inhale another breath. He drops his supplies, and begins to run, but to no avail. The mine sparks and sets ablaze, which reminds me somehow of myself. Fire surrounds him quickly. Danlar is killed instantly due to an explosion. Several more follow, and my father is indulged in severe flames. I can nearly feel _his _experience, the welts rising up against charred skin, the fierce, torturous burning—

My father cries out and topples to the filthy mine ground, rolling about like a wounded animal. His is screaming, an agonized sound. The invisible me grabs at her ears. She doesn't want to hear. _I _don't want to hear. My father. _My father_.

I can sympathize slightly with his situation, but the similarities between his and my agony differ entirely. The wounds on the back of my calf and the skin of my palms compare in _no way_ to this burning. This smoldering my father is feeling. He is still screaming. Why hasn't he died yet? Why haven't the flames ended his suffering? Is this even a hallucination? This vision, it's so—so real. _Painfully realistic._

My father's screaming has stopped, because he has been reduced to ashes. A final explosion diminishes the mine to absolutely nothing but flames and more ashes. Ashes of the what used to be human beings. Ashes of my father. Of Gale's father….

The hallucination stops abruptly, and the next comes and settles in to replace it.

AN: Please review. I tried terribly hard to keep Katniss in character, but pardon me if there are any OOC moments. This _is _my first Hunger Games fanfiction, after all. Also, sorry it is rather short. Future chapters, I hope, will (or should) be longer.


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